Welcome to our Speaking Up for a Faithful Budget series! Want to see other posts? Sign up here to receive them in your inbox and to view previous posts in the series. Next week we’ll be hearing about immigration.

Welcome to our Speaking Up for a Faithful Budget series! Want to see other posts? Sign up here to receive them in your inbox and to view previous posts in the series. Next week we’ll be hearing about poverty focused development assistance.

Welcome to our Advocacy Works series! Want to see other posts? Sign up here to receive them in your inbox.

Have you ever thought of advocacy as an act of worship or a step of discipleship? I hadn't.

So often I feel that I’m not the advocate or the disciple that I wish I was. Although I’ve had numerous classes and spiritual experiences that had potential to lead to flourishing in both realms, the disconnect between a dysfunctional reality and Shalom weighs heavily. What is a person to do?

I have an encouraging story to tell you. Last Sunday I led 12 Sunday school kids, ages roughly 3 to 12, in learning about the underfunding of First Nations schools on reserve by the Canadian government and how we can speak up for fair funding. We started off by talking about the creation story, especially the creation of humanity in God’s image, and how that makes every single one of us special. The kids were excited to talk about how we can let others know that they’re special: one 3 year-old said his parents make him feel special when they tuck him in for the night.

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat—there are a plethora of social media platforms used by stay-at-home moms and celebrities, private citizens and elected officials alike to communicate opinions, beliefs, statements, facts, untruths, popular myths, and more. Then we have regular news sources apart from social media including BBC, CNN, Fox News, CBS, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Blaze—an amalgam of news sources with talking heads and op-ed pieces that launch information, news stories, and soundbites endlessly our way.

Two weeks ago, refugees who were prepared to enter the U.S. received devastating news. After waiting for years and in some cases decades, they found out they were not allowed to enter the country because the U.S. refugee resettlement system was put on pause. There are 21.3 million refugees in the world. Fifty percent of them are children. Less than one percent of all refugees will ever be permanently resettled to a new country.

Welcome to Ordinary Time! Ordinary Time is that vast stretch of the church year between January 6 (Epiphany) and Lent (and also between Pentecost and Advent). The name of the season is, admittedly, not terribly inspiring, but it expresses an important truth--much of our lives can feel ordinary and routine, and yet these are the lives that God calls us to offer to him as living sacrifices. As Romans 12:1 reads: